A Rain Of Sundrops

I did not have the best of days, so getting into a hot bath in the evening, was quite a peak. I closed my eyes for just for a few seconds, but when I opened them again, a goddess was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, asking: “This is all you have for a bathroom? Why didn’t you paint the ceiling?” My wish to play it cool lead me to this answer: “I will paint it, when I’m ready for it.”

My wonderful muse said: “Please stay in the water! But change the surrounding, would you?” Of course, I tried my best. I made my bathtub round and larger, the edge wider and surrounded everything with nice green plants. The ceiling grew out of sight and a few saffron coloured birds flew over our heads. “Much better!”, the muse exclaimed. “How’s the water?” She didn’t wait for an answer and just let her Greek goddess body slid out of her toga-like dress and into the pool of hot water. She sighed relaxed. “Happy 10.000 nanowrimo words!”

“November is almost over and the 10.000 is all I got”, I replied after I had thanked her. “But, I have a present for you!”, she sang with her beautiful, beautiful voice. “Tadaaa!” An impressive golden box appeared over the water surface. “Open it! Open it!” I pulled the red ribbon. With a light splashing sound, hundreds of golden glowing coins dropped from the box in the water like a rain of sundrops. I was delighted without understanding. “What are these?”

“Points!”, she answered amused. “You like it?”

I’m sure, I looked stupidly baffled. I let the “points” run through my fingers – a lovely feeling, but it gave me no clue whatsoever. The muses bell-like laughter filled our little bathing scene with joy. “Well, I noticed, that you like getting rewards like points for your work.”

“I do?”

“You used it on various occasions in the past.”

“I did?”

“These are musepoints”, she explained. “I will give them to you for every muse-work you’ll accomplish. You will love this!”, she assured me. “You will get it, if you create something artful – it doesn’t even have to be a world changing piece!” Well, that was a relief! “You will get more points, if you share your work with somebody, because then you will not only train your artistic skills, your work gets the chance of inspiring someone else. I will give you points for advise given, for hands hold and for encouragement spread. It will be great fun for you!” Is it just me, or did she mention that suspiciously often? “And that’s not all!”

“No?”

“No! I will also give you fifty extra-points for everything that you come up with that involves your chosen mortal muse. Because that will be your musechallenge for quite a while and others will evaluate your progress on how you deal with it, so please be extra careful with that.” I nodded very slowly. “Others?”

“Don’t overthink that! You should just ignore the others.” She looked in my insecure face. “If you wish, you can just tell me, when someone is bothering you. You know, when a goat just won’t stop following you around or a swan won’t let you go, where you want to go, when things like that are bothering you, just tell me.”

“Nothing like that happened”, I assured her. “Not lately at least.”

“Good. Good. That’s good”, she said nodding. “And, if you happen to meet another faun, you can also tell me that.”

“No faun”, I said. “Just this one faun so far.”

“And just for the record, you met this faun where?” Her eyes have caught a curious fire, I noticed immediately. “In a passage way near Westbahnhof, you know, the trainstation.” “I know, where it is”, she answered, as she seemed to drift away in her thoughts. I watched her a while, till I couldn’t keep it in anymore: “What is it with muses and fauns? There seem to be a connection. What is it, that makes you so curious about my encounter with a faun.” Her look got even more fire, as she whispered: “This faun of yours, did he play to you? Did he play music to you?”

“Oh yes, he did!”

“How did it make you feel?”

As my memory went back, I could feel my cheeks getting warmer and probably even more red, as the hot bath had made them already. “It was paradise – all those feelings, all those colours, I felt, like I could fly.” The muse looked at me satisfied. “You don’t need to ask – you already felt it!”